


Who Needs Words

by Blue_Feather



Category: Danny Phantom, Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Angst, Blood, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mute Danny, Panic Attacks, Sign Language, Trauma, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Feather/pseuds/Blue_Feather
Summary: Danny Phantom finds himself injured and in the care of the Pines family.  Because of irreparable damage to his throat, he is unable to talk, further harming his already fragile mental state.  Ford and Stan do their best to take him under their wing, but he isn't quite ready to trust again.





	1. A cat what?

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the story, please rate responsibly.

                                                                                                                  

                                                                                   

Danny rolled clumsily to the left as the huge three headed cat lunged at him again. The monster barreled past him and slammed its middle head into a large pine tree with a thunderous boom. It shook itself, unconcerned, and turned to face its prey again.  
Danny stood in a half crouch, panting heavily. His jumpsuit was in tatters; red and green blood oozing from the gashes that this, and the other monsters of the forest, had given him. His ghostly powers hardly seemed to bother them, and while he had eventually been able to prove too much effort for the other monsters, this, feline cerberus, seemed intent on having him for dinner.  
Speaking of, the massive taby lowered its front half, its tail flicked back and forth. Danny scrambled to his feet, and tried to run away, cursing that evil dorito for tricking him into making a deal, trapping him in this bizarro world.  
The air rushed out of Danny’s lungs as a massive paw landed on his back, pressing him into the ground. His hands clawed at the dirt and rocks, desperate to get away. As if to play with it’s food, the cat lifted his paw, just long enough for the ghost boy to catch his breath, before batting him away.  
Danny’s head hit a rock when he landed, stars dancing in front of his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to run or fight anymore. He watched with ragged breath as the cat stalked toward him again. He noted, with more fear than interest, that it had shrunk from the size of a van to that of a small lion. All three heads looked disappointed that it’s prey was done entertaining it. With a disinterested sigh, it pressed a paw to Danny’s chest, and he felt his bruised ribs snap.  
He let out a shriek of pain, that was silenced when the cat’s jaws closed on his throat, sinking it’s teeth into his flesh, and everything went dark.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was an unusually slow day at the mystery shack, so Dipper and Mabel were having a water balloon fight while Stan watched on from the porch. Ford was there as well, but he was typing away at a laptop that Soos had gotten him for christmas. He’d taken quite well to the technology of the modern era; unlike his brother who couldn’t even handle the simple flip phone he had received from his successor that very same holiday.  
“Easy there Mabel, you almost got water on poindexter,” Stan teased when a water balloon landed dangerously close to the author and his precious laptop.  
“Oops, sorry Grunkle Ford!” Mabel called before receiving a face full of water from her brother. Stan sighed happily, glad to have his great niece and nephew back for another summer; a summer made even better by the adventures he’d had with his brother over the fall and spring. They’d taken a break in the winter to visit the kids and wait out the storm season. As he cracked open a pit cola, he smiled to himself, knowing that nothing could possibly ruin this moment.  
At that moment, Mabel shrieked.  
Stan was off the couch in an instant, his trusty brass knuckles on his fists. Ford was also in a defencive stance, with one of his weird ray guns pointed at the enemy. This enemy, was a truck sized three headed cat stepping out of a swirling portal at the edge of the forest.  
Dipper and Mabel ran to hide behind their grunkles, Mabel pointing to the middle head.  
“It’s got someone already!” She pulled her grappling hook from wherever she kept it, but didn’t look eager to use it.  
Stan looked to his brother, and an understanding passed between them. Together, they charged the monster, Ford firing at the two heads not holding the unconscious person, while Stan snatched up a bucket of the kids water balloons and started throwing.  
All three head’s yowled with pain and anger at getting unwillingly wet, dropping it’s prey in the process. Ford lunged for the falling kid, trying to catch him before he hit the ground, only to have him pass through his arms and land at his feet.  
The cat turned tail and ran back through the portal, which closed as soon as the tip of its tail had vanished.  
Ford was staring in shock at the being at his feet, unsure how to progress, while his brother scolded him.  
“How could you not catch that kid? You were literally right under him!”  
“Is he alright?” Mabel asked, as she started to run over to her grunkles, only to be held back by her brother, who recognized the look on Fords face.  
“What is he, Ford?” the ever cautious Dipper asked.  
“What do you mean, he’s a kid,” Stan knelt down to touch the kid, only to have his hand pass through him.  
“What the fu...,”  
“Stan!” Ford cut him off.  
Mabel broke free from her brother and dashed over to the boy, gasping in shock when she saw he was covered in blood. Just as Dipper caught up to her, a flash of bright light caused the Pines family to avert their eyes, but they still saw the ring of light that passed over the boy, turning his hair black, and changing his clothes from a tattered jump suit, to an equally tattered pair of jeans and a shirt.  
“He’s a… He’s a…” Dipper stuttered in shock.  
“He’s a Halfa,” Ford finished for him.  
“Who cares what he is,” he’s going to die if we don’t get him to a hospital!” Stan growled, scooping up the now tangible boy and making for the car.  
“We can’t take him to the hospital, Stan!” Ford placed a hand on his twins shoulder, halting his march.  
“What do you mean Sixer?” Stan asked, a warning in his voice. His twin took a deep breath before continuing.  
“What I mean is, an ordinary hospital won’t know how to treat a half ghost, which is what this boy is. And catberus have a nasty venom, which a hospital isn’t going to have the antidote for.”  
“Do you?” Stan asked.  
“Do I what?” Ford moved to feel the halfa’s pulse.  
“Do you know how to heal him ya knuckle head.”  
“In theory yes,” Ford stated, and when his brother gave him a questioning look he added, “Which is far better than any hospital will.”  
“Fine,” Stan relented, and instead marched toward the shack, his brother hot on his heels. Before he made it inside however, he turned to the kids and said, “You two better get inside incase that cat-er-bus comes back or whatever,” shaking them from their shocked stupor as they bolted after their grunkles.


	2. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we’re back. This is a day off for me, which is why you are seeing this chapter so soon after the last, but don’t get your hopes up for this to be the frequency of updates all the time. It will be as work allows.

 

                                                                                  

Ford and Stan locked themselves in the basement lab, forbidding the younger twins from coming down until they gave the all clear.  
Stan set the unconscious teen on a well-lit medical table that Ford just happened to have; he said it was for dissection of specimens that had died in the woods of natural causes. Stan chose to stay out of it; he could interrogate his brother later.  
“Stan, get me that white bag in the corner,” Ford waved in the general direction of the south wall as he pulled on a pair of six fingered sterile gloves, and a surgical mask. Stan collected the bag, and set it on a nearby table, as Ford tossed him a pair of gloves and mask.  
“I don’t think I’m qualified to help you poindexter,” Stan stated as he pulled on the gloves, the extra finger dangling awkwardly.  
“I don’t intend to have you perform surgery, but I also don’t want you contaminating anything,” Ford said shortly. He opened the bag and removed a pair of scissors, which made quick work of the boys tattered clothes.  
“Why does he have that green stuff in his blood?” Stan asked over his brother’s shoulder, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.  
“It’s ectoplasm, a uniquely ghostly substance. This child is a half ghost, a very rare creature that an old colleague of mine once theorized about. But the circumstances that would need to arise for one to form is extremely unlikely to happen in nature.”  
“In english please,” Stan groaned.  
“He was most likely made in a lab. There’s a 75% chance it was on purpose.” While Ford was talking, his hands were busy cleaning the halfa’s wounds, focusing particularly to those on his throat, being that they were the most life threatening.  
Ford handed a clean cloth and bottle of sterile water to Stan, “I want to to clean the lesser cuts on his arms, legs, and torso, while I prepare the antivenom.” Stan grumbled at his brothers back, but dutifully did as he was told.  
As the blood and dirt was washed away, the old con man noticed old scars on the boy. They reminded him of the ones he’d earned in dirty street fights, burns, knife wounds, and tears caused by high velocity impacts, or fists.  
Ford returned with a syringe holding a strange purple liquid. He wiped the boy’s inner elbow with a alcohol pad, found the vein, and pressed down the plunger. After tossing the used syringe in a hazardous waste bin, he turned back to the boys throat.  
“Stan, get me the little yellow kit from the bag.” Gently, he cleaned the wounds with alcohol, and prodded the gashes, getting a look at how deep they went. The catberus’ teeth had somehow missed most of the major arteries, but much of the delicate cartilage of the larynx, the voice box, was severely damaged. Ford didn’t have the knowledge to repair this damage, and he almost considered taking the boy to a proper hospital, but that thought left his mind the moment he remembered what the scientific community would do if they found out what this boy was.

Over the winter, Ford had visited several seminars and gatherings within his field of study, the strange and weird. One of these seminars was on the topic of ghosts, where he met a pair of ghost hunters by the name of Jack and Maddie Fenton. The question of what they do to the ghosts they capture came up, and Ford wasn’t surprised to learn that they dissected and then eliminated them. But those were full ghosts, creatures that weren’t alive, just collections of animated ecto-plasma. This was a child who had somehow both died, and survived. Ford was not going to let anyone with ill intent get their hands on this kid.  
Stan tapped his brother on the shoulder, jolting him out of his thoughts.  
“You good? You went into your head there,” Stan searched his brothers eyes, but Ford just shrugged him off and took the yellow case from his hand.  
“I’m perfectly fine, just deciding what kind of suture I want to use.” Stan knew better than to try to drill his brother into spilling what he was actually thinking about, as that was a sure fire way to get shut out for a week. Instead, he watched with interest as the nimble fingered scientist stitched up the boys throat, and several other large wounds.  
The smaller cuts, Stan cleaned and bandaged. After Ford was sure his patent was stable, he unpacked his X-ray machine and took pictures of the Halfa’s skeleton, to make sure nothing more than his ribs were broken.  
Satisfied that he’d taken care of every injury he could, Ford had Stan help him set up a cot in the back part of the lab, near his workstation, and transferred the boy to that. He set up an IV, so he could easily give him antibiotics, painkillers, and fluids.  
“Okay, you can let the kids down now,” Ford sat back in a chair and rubbed his temples. As Stan left through the elevator, Ford looked at the thin form under a simple cotton blanket. He too had noticed the old wounds on the boy, and was already formulating a theory on how he’d gotten so many; a theory that led down a dark, unstable path.  
The elevator opened again, and his brother, grand niblings, Wendy, and Soos entered the lab, the latter two apparently had been called over by the younger twins.  
“What’s going on boss man?” Soos asked Ford, who gestured for them all to sit.  
“I’m going to assume the kids told you two about the catberus?” Wendy and Soos nodded.  
“Well then, the boy the catberus brought here is a half ghost, sometimes referred to as a halfa. Until today, they were just theoretical beings, belonging neither to the human world, nor the ghost one. And I don’t mean the afterlife, but a strange parallel world of sorts that is intermingled with our own. Those who study this world call it the ghost zone; I in fact know a brilliant pair of scientist that have managed to create a stable portal to this ghost zone, though I haven’t had the opportunity to see it myself. These ghosts have many of the same abilities associated with the kind of ghosts that haunt their place of death, including intangibility and invisibility. The scientists I mention also say ghosts can shoot beams of ectoplasm, and some have elemental powers.”  
“Question,” Wendy interrupted with a raised hand. “This is all super interesting, but is the kid going to be okay?”  
“Oh, right. Yes, he should be fine. Although there was some damage to his larynx, so he may have some difficulty speaking for a while,” Ford waved his hand in a noncommittal gesture that caused his brother to narrow his eyes.  
“Now, back to what I was saying,” Ford continued. “Until the boy wakes up, we won’t know exactly what powers he has, but I want to be cautious. There is a high probability he is an escaped lab experiment…”  
“You’re not going to send him back to a lab are you grunkle Ford!” Mabel demand.  
“Of course he isn’t sweety,” Stan answered for his brother, before glaring at the scientist, who glared right back.  
“I would never do such a thing. That’s the very reason I was against taking him to a hospital. If the wrong people find out what he is, they will want to tear him apart molecule by molecule.”  
Soos gasped at this revelation, and the other three looked grim.  
“So, we’re going to be hiding him then?” Dipper spoke up for the first time.  
“If that’s what it takes,” Ford answered simply.  
“We won’t know the whole story till he wakes up,” Stan stated. “And until he does, you four need to get back upstairs. Tomorrow is Saturday, and I want the shack spotless for the tourists.” The four groaned and stood up, marching for the exit.  
“And don’t forget to restock the shelves, I noticed a severe lack of overpriced nicknacks in the gift shop!”  
Once they had left, Stan turned to his brother.  
“Thanks Stanley,” Ford held his hands in his lap to keep them from shaking. He slid out of his chair and sat on the floor, his back pressed against the wall.  
“You’re scared,” Stan noted.  
“I am not! I’m concerned about the boy. Who knows what kind of mental state he will be in when he wakes up. What if the damage to his throat is more severe than I realize, and he won’t be able to talk again, what if…”  
“Yeah, you’re scared,” Stan interpreted. He sat down next to his brother, their shoulders pressing together.  
“How do you always see through me Stanley?” Ford asked, his face pressed into his hands.  
“I’m a con man, I gotta know how to read people. It’s okay to be scared Ford. It looks like this kid is going to throw us into a whole different type of adventure, but I doubt he is evil or anything.”  
“That’s not what I’m scared of.”  
“Then what are…”  
“I’m scared that I don’t know how to care for an abused child.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dunnnn. Let me know what you think. I have some ideas of where this is going swirling around in my head, but if you have anything you want to see, let me know.  
> P.S. I like the word Catberus, can you tell?


	3. A gentle six fingered hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note, anything in _italics_ is Danny’s writing. The perspective in this story is going to change a lot.

 

                                                                                  

Without opening his eyes, Danny woke to a pleasant, floating feeling, one that he recognized as Morphine. There had been a few cases where Sam had used her family money and influence to get him some when he’d taken a particularly brutal beating. Thinking of Sam made him close his eyes tighter against the threatening tears. He tried to take a deep breath to calm him, but his throat and chest screamed in pain and his sat up abruptly, eyes flying open as he remembered his battle with the cat monsters. Pain filled his entire body from his movement, and he curled into a ball on his side till it passed, somehow managing not to make a sound.

After several long moments, the screaming of his body dulled to a tolerable amount, and he opened his eyes again. He was looking at a stone wall, carved right out of the earth.  
‘Great, I’m underground,’ he thought to himself. ‘Wait, what?!’  
Slowly this time, he sat up, and took in his surroundings. It was clearly some kind of underground lab, the very idea of which made Danny’s hands shake with fear. Strange equipment lined the walls of the small room, and a doorway lead into what appeared to be a larger section. There was a soft noise, and Danny slowly looked for the source, and what he saw made him jump. In the darker half of the room, a strange man in a trench coat was slouched over a desk asleep, his head pillowed in his arms; Danny had missed him on his first glance. The man didn’t really look like a scientist, more like an explorer, someone you didn’t want to pick a fight with.  
Once he had gotten a look at the room, and decided the man wasn’t a threat just yet, Danny turned his attention to himself. Under the white blanket he was naked, except for a pair of underwear that wasn’t his. At least they looked clean. The rest of his body was covered in an array of bandages, the ones on his throat being especially thick. With thin fingers, he prodded these bandages, remembering the bite the cat had given him, and marvling that he wasn’t dead; though whether or not that was a good thing, he hadn’t decided yet.  
As a test, he tried humming softly, and was met with a surge of pain that made him gasp loudly and clutch his throat. The noise, though rather soft, was enough to wake the sleeping man, and send Danny into full panic mode.

Ford woke to a soft noise, groggily lifting his head from where he had fallen asleep at his desk and looking around. The boy was awake! Ford nearly fell out of the chair, the movement drawing a strangled noise that might have been a scream from the injured child.  
“Easy, I’m not going to hurt you,” Ford said softly. The boy’s brilliant blue eyes were full of fear, his back pressed to the wall his cot was against, the IV dangerously close to being pulled out of his arm. He was clutching his throat like it hurt him.  
Ford took a few steps forward, and the boy pressed himself further into the wall, his eyes shut tight. As he watched, the boy was turning transparent.  
“No wait, please don’t go intangible, you are only going to aggravate your injuries doing that!” Ford pleaded, the desperation clear in his voice.  
The teen opened his eyes again, and Ford breathed a sigh of relief when he turned opaque.  
“Uh, look. I’ll uh… I’ll sit down way over here okay?” Ford sat on the floor next to his desk, which was a good ten feet from the boy. He hoped this would allow the child to feel more powerful, as his head was higher than the scientist.  
It seemed to work; the boy stopped pushing quite as hard on the wall.  
“Uh, how about introductions,” Ford said, trying to speak softly and calmly. “My name is Stanford Pines, though everyone calls me Ford.”  
The teen tried to say something, but all that came out was a breathy noise, and the boy winced in pain.  
“Oh right, your larynx was damaged by the catberus,” Ford stood up, drawing another strangled noise from the child. He rummaged around in his desk for a minute, until he found a small whiteboard the size of a sheet of paper, and a black dry erase marker.  
“I’m going to come over there so I can give this too you, okay?” Ford asked gently. The child shook his head furiously no. Ford sighed.  
“You won’t be able to ask any questions if I don’t,” he explained calmly. The teen seemed to consider this for a moment, so Ford added, “I’ll go right back over to my side of the room, okay?” Much to Ford’s relief, the boy nodded.  
As non threateningly as he could be, Ford crossed the room and set the board and marker on the cot next to the boys legs. The child noticed his hands, and gave Ford a questioning look.  
“Oh, you noticed my polydactylism. I was born with six fingers on each hand,” Ford wiggled his digits to emphasize his point. The boy looked away, and Ford took that as his cue to go back to the other side of the room.  
Once he was seated, in his desk chair this time, he asked the question that was burning through his mind.  
“So what is your name?” The teen struggled with the board and marker for a few moments, trying to get his weak fingers to do what he wanted, but eventually he got the marker uncapped and in a position he could write with. After scribbling something on the board, he turned it around for Ford to see.  
_Danny_  
“Do you have a last name?”  
_No_  
“How old are you?” Danny considered for a moment, and Ford realized he was deciding whether or not to tell him. But after a short internal conflict, he wrote, _15_. Danny wiped the board clean with a corner of his blanket and asked, _where?_  
“You are in my Lab,” a dozen different emotions flashed across Danny’s face, and Ford raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t hurt kids though. I just study the strange and abnormal. Like this,” he raised his hands and wiggled his fingers again. “And like you.”  
_You know?_  
“Yes, and I’m not going to hurt you. I didn’t take you to a hospital exactly because I did know. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if certain members of the scientific community got ahold of you.”  
_You don’t look like a scientist._ Ford laughed at that, causing Danny to jump at the noise, before a small smile crossed his face.  
“What do I look like?”  
_A badass old guy?_  
“I’m sure my brother would disagree with you.” At the mention of another person, Ford saw the fear creep back into Danny’s eyes, so he quickly added, “You don’t have to meet the rest of my family until you are ready.”  
_Who else is there besides your brother?_  
“Oh. Well, my grand niece and nephew are staying the summer with us. Dipper and Mabel, they are twins, like me and my brother. And Wendy and Soos know about you as well, and I’m sure are eager to meet you, when you are ready. They are employees of my brother and his tourist trap that takes up a good half of our house. But they are as good as family.”  
Danny seemed to consider this with a sort of solomon quiet. Ford let the silence hang over them, waiting for the boy’s next question. When it came, it wasn’t what he was expecting.  
_Can I have some water?_  
“Uh, yes. But only a little. You don’t actually need any, that IV is giving you all the water you need, and I don’t want you to over exert your throat.” Ford stood up and got a water bottle out of a mini fridge in a corner of the room. He fished a straw out of a cabinet, and brought them over to the boy.  
“May I?” he asked, indicating that he wanted to sit on the cot. Danny scooted over, till he was on the edge, and Ford sat down. He looked at the boy’s hands, covered in cuts and scrapes and bandages, struggling to hold onto the marker, and realized he wasn’t going to be opening the bottle. So Ford did it for him, and inserted the straw.  
“Remember, tinny sips. Do you need help holding it?” Danny shook his head and Ford passed him the bottle. Danny held it gingerly, and brought it too his lips. He took what Ford would not qantify as a small sip, immediately doubling over in a painful coughing fit, the bottle falling to the floor where it spilled. Ford’s instinct took over, as he moved closer and started gently rubbing his back.  
As he finally stopped coughing, Danny looked at his hands to see they were covered in blood. He looked over to see Ford sitting next to him, his hand still on his back. Danny flinched away from the touch, and Ford removed his hand, standing up.  
“Let me get you something to clean that off.” Ford went to the wall where a sink stood, a roll of paper towels mounted on the wall. He wet a few and went back to the teen, who had relaxed a little, but was still staring at his hands; blood dripped down his chin.  
“Here,” Ford gave him the wet towels, realizing that he probably wouldn’t take well to being touched for a while. Danny took them and rubbed at his hands and face, though some of the bandages were stained.  
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Ford asked. “Anyone you want to call, or…” Danny shook his head.  
“Okay, you can stay here as long as you want. Infact, I insist you stay here if you don’t have anywhere else to go.” Danny looked up at Ford, something like gratitude in his eyes. Ford could almost feel them connecting, when, like normal his brother barged in and ruined everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to ask, do ya’ll want more frequent shorter chapters, or longer less frequent chapters? Please let me know.


	4. Trauma and Shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are frequently more perseptive than I give you credit for. Also, I am dislexic, so please forgive any spelling errors, I'll fix them when I find them later. It can take several read throughs for me to notice them.

              

                                                                                                

 

Stanley emerged from the elevator holding an empty super glue bottle.  

“Ford, do you know where I hid the glue, woah!”  Stan ducked as a green energy beam shot over his head, melting a hole in the door.  

Danny’s eyes and hands were glowing green; he was breathing deeply, staring wide eyed at the intruder.  

“Danny!” Ford yelled, harsher than him ment.  The boy flinched away from him, and vanished before the twins eyes.  

“Where’d he go?” Stan exclaimed, slowly standing up.  

“He’s still there,” Ford said, gesturing to the blanket that was clearly still on the invisible boy's lap.  

“Sorry kid, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Stan said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “If I knew you were awake I wouldn’t have come down here.”

“It’s okay Stan, I should have locked the door,” Ford rubbed the bridge of his nose, his glasses sliding up on his face.  

“Are you going to come out kid?” Stan asked.  Instead of a response, the room dropped several degrees as ice began to form on the wall behind where the ghost child was sitting.  The blanket moved, as though Danny had curled into a ball, and was rocking himself.

“Danny?” Ford asked, gently placing a hand on where the child’s shoulder would be, and immediately pulling away, his fingers covered in frost.  

“What’s happening?” Stan asked, fear creeping into his voice.  

“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s having a flashback,” Ford said sadly.  

“Well then we’ve got to stop it right?” Stan practically yelled.  The invisible form winced.

“Keep it down Stanley.  I don’t think there is anything we can do.  He doesn’t trust us yet, any contact could only send him deeper into his mind.  We will just have to wait.”

After several tense minutes, the temperature slowly rose, the ice melted, and Danny became visible again.  He was rubbing tears from his face, and avoiding eye contact with the twins. Ford knelt down in front of him.  

“Danny, are you okay?” He asked softly.  Danny reached for the board, which had moved just out of reach.  Ford passed it to him. Without making eye contact, Danny answered, _yeah_.

“What happened?” Stan asked.  

_Don’t want to talk about it._

“That’s fine, you can when you are ready okay?”  Danny nodded. Ford took a slow, deep breath. “I’m going to go upstairs to talk with my brother for a second,  alright?” Danny nodded again, his fingers fidgeting in his lap. Ford grabbed something off the top of a filing cabinet, and offered it to the child.  

Danny gingerly took the offered rubik's cube, the faces totally scrambled.  

“I’ll be right back, _”_ Ford assured him, but he was already focused on the cube, glad for the distraction.

Ford lead his brother to the elevator, which thankfully still worked after getting shot with ectoplasm.  Once the doors were safely closed, Ford slumped against the wall.

“You okay poindexter?” Stan asked gently.  Ford took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  

“I’ll be alright, but this is going to be even harder than I thought.”

“I am really sorry about barging down there.  I wouldn’t have…”

“It’s not your fault,” Ford interrupted.  “It’s just going to take Danny a while to warm up to us.”  

“So his name’s Danny huh?”

“Yeah.”

“How old is he?”  

“15.  He claims to not have a last name.  I’m not sure what to think about that yet.”  

“Could mean he never had one.”

“Or he doesn’t want to associate with his family,” Ford mused.

“What else did you learn?”

“Not much actually.  Communicating via written word isn’t the fastest, or the most accurate.  Hey, will you do me a favor?”

“Anything Sixer.”  

“I want you to get some books from the library on sign language.  I know a little, but it’s been a long time since I needed it. It’d be best if the rest of the family learned some too.  It’s pretty intuitive. It’d be better if we could talk to him in a more natural way.”

“Sure thing,” Stan slung his arm around his brother.  They’d arrived at the top a while ago, but remained in the elevator talking.  Ford looked at his watch.

“The library is closed now, so you’ll have to go tomorrow.  Take the kids with you, I’ll get Danny’s sizes tonight so you can pick up some clothes for him, that should help make him feel more comfortable.”

“You’ve really taken to this kid haven’t you.” Stan stated simply.  Ford looked at the floor and smiled.

 

“Why are we at the mall Grunkle Stan?” Dipper asked as they pulled into the parking lot.  

“WE’RE GOING SHOPPING?!?!?!?!?!” Mabel screeched, causing Dipper to cover his ears.  

“What are we getting?” Dipper asked.  Stan waved his hand in the air.

“Some books on sign language, and some clothes for the kid.”  He stepped out of the car and patted his pockets.

“Now where did I put that, oh.  Here,” he held a piece of paper.  Stan went to hand it to Mabel, but then clearly thought better of it and gave it to Dipper.  

“That’s a list of the kids clothes sizes.  Don’t get anything your sister would get.”

“Hey!” Mabel complained, insulted.  

“He’s 15, that’s not that much older than you,” Stan continued. He fished in his pocket for a second time, and came out with a wad of cash.  He handed half to Dipper, and the other half to Mabel.

“Mabel, I want you to get some candy, or coloring books, or whatever you want to keep him busy.”  

“I won’t let you down,” Mabel slauted and scampered off toward the store.  

“I doubt she is going to get anything he will like.  If what Ford told me is accurate, Danny doesn’t like pink frills and rainbow unicorn coloring books.”

“I know,” Stan stated as he started walking to the building.  “That was just to keep her busy. I actually want you to get him some nerd books.  Apparently he wants to be an astronaut, or something.” Stan waved his hands around like it was all ridiculous, but Dipper knew the truth.  Stan had taught himself advanced math and physics in order to reconstruct the portal to bring his brother back; he was now as much of a nerd as the rest of them.  

“Okay, see you later then!” Dipper waved behind him as he hurried for the building.  

Dipper looked at the list and found it was pretty straight forward.  Jeans, t-shirts, socks, shoes, underwear, and a hoodie, along with their respective sizes.  He chose a clothing store at random, grabbing a cart on his way in, and headed for the right section.  

He decided to shop they way he usually did, throwing the first thing he saw in the cart, and getting out as painlessly as possible. Dipper went for the easy stuff first, a bag of socks, and underwear.  He checked off the little boxes Ford had drawn on the paper with a pen he kept tuck in his vest.

Jeans where next.  He grabbed three pairs of straight legs in slightly different shades of blue and tossed them in the cart.  Check. Next he picked a couple of plain black and grey t-shirts and threw them in too. As he was heading for the jackets, he noticed a blue shirt with this on the front:

                                                                                               (Get real)     (Be Rational)

                                                                                                       \             /

                                                                                                         **π**       **√-1**

He threw it in the cart.  A plain red hoodie soon followed suit.  Shoe’s were hard, but he eventually settled on some similar to the ones he was wearing, plain black tennis shoes.  As he was checking out, Mabel barreled into the store, a bag from the candy store gripped tight in her hand.

“You won’t believe what I found Dippin sauce!”  She pulled out a handful of suckers that looked like the planets.  

“Woah, that’s really cool Mabel,” Dipper said, genuinely impressed.  

“I know right?  I overheard you and Grunkle Ford talking, and heard something about Danny being a space geek, so tada!”  Dipper smiled at his sister; she acted silly, but over the past year she had gotten much better at actually listening and considering other people's feelings.  They walked together to the bookstore, Mabel digging through his shopping and beratting Dipper’s fashion sense the whole way.

As Dipper split off to head for the astronomy section, he passed Stan in the language one, and doubled back.  

“What are you getting Stan?” he asked, startling the conman as he flipped through a book.  

“Oh, hey Dipper.  Ford wanted me to get some sign language books from the library, but I hate libraries.”  He shuddered. “So I figured I’d just borrow, er, buy them from the store instead. How does this one look?” he tossed the one he was holding to Dipper, who caught it awkwardly.  He opened it and flipped to a random page, examining the directions for performing the sign for Cake.

“Looks good to me.”  He passed the book back.  

“Good. Hey, have you seen your sister running around?  I don’t want to have to extract her from a claw machine again.”  Dipper laughed.

“Yeah, she’s in this store somewhere, probably finding the biggest coloring book she can get her hands on.”  

“Okay.  I’m almost done here.  I’ll meet you kids back at the car.”  Dipper continued on his way to find his favorite book on the formation on stars, and black holes.  Luckily, the weird Gravity Falls book store had it. They also had one of his favorite books on ciphers and codes, so he got that one too.  He made it up to the counter the same time Mabel did, who, to no one's surprise, had a giant coloring book under her arm. She also had some weird novel called Behind the Sun that everyone at their school was obsessed with for some reason, Dipper hadn’t read it.  He thought he remember there was a movie made about it that everyone hated. Mabel already had the book, so he guessed it was for Danny.

“What’d you find nerd bro?” Mabel asked, looking at the books in his hands.  He moved the books so she could see the covers.

“Boring, this is much better,” she held out her pick.  

“Sure Mabel,” Dipper laughed, as he took his turn at the register.  

 

As they neared the car, Dipper sensed that something was off.  He could see Stan on his cellphone, which he hated using, with a grim look on his face.  When he noticed the kids, he yelled, “Get in the car now! We have to get back to the Shack!”

“What happened?” Dipper asked, pulling open the door, and shoving his shopping inside.  

“It’s Ford.” He gunned the car home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't help but end on cliffhangers. I'm not sorry.


End file.
